As a newbie, I rather play safe.
Get hosting from those who have been in the business
for quite sometime.

First of all the price must be good,
but at times it's hard to tell in the beginning
until you have experience it, doing FTP and so on.
Newbie got try few hosting unless strongly
recommended by pals. I've been with 3 hostings
since July 2006, only then I think I've found
a relieable one, super-clean, fast, great!

This is one great one:
HOSTGATOR WEB HOSTING - cPanel, Reseller, and Dedicated Website Hosting